Call for Papers: British Isles and the Continent (Due Nov. 18)

Time: Fri Nov 18, 2011, All Day

Location: University of Notre Dame

From the Glorious Revolution to the European Union: Connections Between the British Isles and the Continent
An Interdisciplinary Graduate Student Conference
March 9 & 10, 2012 | McKenna Hall | University of Notre Dame

Call for Papers

Abstracts Due November 18, 2011

The Nanovic Institute for European Studies at the University of Notre Dame announces an interdisciplinary graduate student conference on the history and literature of the British Isles in a European context from the Glorious Revolution to the twenty-first century.
In light of the recent economic collapses in Ireland and Greece and their painful consequences across Europe, the clash between national sovereignty and interdependence within the European Union has recently become a widely contested topic, raising fundamental questions about the European project itself. Although many contemporary pundits proclaim that this interdependence to be the result of the rise of the EU, historical and literary records indicate that this is not the case. We find instead that people, goods, information, ideas, and beliefs have traveled between the British Isles and the Continent for centuries. The aim of this conference is to focus on the relationships between the four nations of the British Isles and the rest of Europe in order to examine the nature of those connections and to track the changes and continuities over time. This central concern has many implications we would seek to tease out in our program, including questions of how national identity is reconciled with European identity, the potential associations between revolutions (the Glorious, French, Industrial, etc.) across time and space, the effects of European conflicts on the connections between the nations, and the role of empire-building and the impact of resulting rivalries between nations on their relationships. To fully engage these issues, we will even need to question how we define sovereignty itself.
The conference will take place at McKenna Hall at the University of Notre Dame on Friday, March 9 and Saturday, March 10, 2012. Papers from history and literature departments are especially encouraged. The authors of all accepted papers will be fully compensated for lodging for two nights and will receive a travel subvention of $100. All contributions should be submitted on britishislesandthecontinent.com by November 1, 2011 and include a 250-word abstract and curriculum vitae.

Panels will likely include the following topics:

The British Isles and European Modernisms

Religion and the State

Diplomacy /International Relations in a European Context

Intellectual Exchange

Material and Popular Culture

Diaspora

Literature and Music

Gender/Sexuality across national boundaries

Inter-cultural Representations

Speakers include:

Tony Claydon, Professor of Early Modern History, Bangor University

Hugh McLeod, Emeritus Professor of Church History, University of Birmingham

Nicholas Grene, Professor of English Literature, Trinity College Dublin